Coda Cabin and the Letters from Hogwarts
by AlexFierro
Summary: A 4th year student at Ilvermorny finds a very lost owl
1. An Unexpected Delivery

It was a crisp September morning and Coda Cabin was the first to wake up in the Thunderbird* girl's dorm of Ilvermorny School for Witchcraft and Wizardry*. She had barely changed out of her pajamas before bursting out the door and down the stairs to explore the outside. She knew she wasn't supposed to be up and exploring the school on her own, but everyone else was asleep and she didn't see the point in waking anybody else up so early when she wasn't even leaving school grounds, and besides she'd had her wand with her and three years of schooling under her belt. As she stepped out the door to the pavilion, she grinned at the cool air biting her cheeks and the warm sun hugging her shoulders. She took in a deep breath. _Perfect._ This morning was perfect, she thought to herself as she stepped toward a little fountain in the middle of the stone pavilion, a perfect morning for an adventure.

The girl dipped a stubby finger into the water and watched the tiny waves break around it. She looked up, squinting in the morning sun, as she felt her cropped brown curls brush against her forehead in the wind. If this were a school day, everyone would have been up an hour ago, but nobody wanted to wake up at six in the morning on a Saturday. Nobody who didn't have anything to be doing, anyway. But Coda had set herself a mission. She wanted to explore every inch of the old fort and it's grounds. She had been boarding there since she was eleven, and yet she still hadn't seen every inch of the place. She was in no rush, but she was itching for adventure with every fiber of her being. Somehow, even a school that taught solely magic could get boring over time. It was too repetitive. Her wand even seemed to agree, seeming to want to break out of it's own wood, vibrating when she used a spell enough times in a row. When it had picked her on her first day at the school, somebody had told her that when that type of wand wood got too bored it had been known to explode. Coda didn't know how true that was, but she could believe it.

She had let her muscles loosen and her breathing slow, so when a loud fluttering noise suddenly beat against the rafters, she almost jumped out of her skin. Her first thought was that one of the Pukwudgies* that roamed the school had come for her, bad news given how they seemed to hate the students there (and she had heard stories of them doing awful things to humans), but when she turned to see a rather sick and weak looking owl, her brow furrowed in confusion. Slowly and carefully, she inched toward the poor creature and quickly noticed that there was something strapped to it's leg. A letter, she realised, and unstrapped it, opening it to see if she could maybe find who it was meant to be for and deliver it herself. She gently petted the large brown bird to calm it as she released the tie from it's foot and sat next to it, opening the letter.

 _Dearest_ _mother,_

 _I'm doing well! I can't wait for the next trip to Hogsmede, but it isn't for another month. Martha Bouvier hasn't let up though and I'm just about ready to curse her into another dimension. I love this school, but she makes living here almost unbearable. I'll survive, but I'm not making any guarantees that she will. Anyway, how are Albert and daddy? I miss you all already!_

 _With love,_

 _Thorn Blackwell_

Coda's eyes widened upon reading this. Had this letter really come all the way from Hogwarts? That would exaplain why the bird looked so distraught. And just like that, Coda had a new mission. she had to get this bird back to health and get it back to Scotland...somehow. She looked back down at the bird, a small frown resting on her lips. How was she supposed to get him all the way to Scotland? And wouldn't his owner be worried by now? She flipped the Envelope searching for the address it had come from before remembering she couldn't exactly send a reply to Hogwarts through no-maj* mail, and she certainly couldn't send a bird. She supposed if the owl had made it one way, once she got it back to health it could fly back, but she hated doing that to the poor thing and besides that, that didn't explain how she was going to let the sender know that their owl was okay.

Coda froze at the sound of mumbling and the unmistakeable shadow of a pukwudgie heading in her direction. She scooped the bird into her arms and hurried back towards the door and through it just as the creature was turning the corner. To be safe, she didn't stop running until she'd made it back up the stairs and into the Thunderbird common room. She set the owl down on the seat of a large cranberry armchair as she tried to catch her breath.

"What are you doing? What- Is that a bird?"

The girl stiffened at the unexpected voice and turned around slowly. Standing there was a tall, lanky boy in dark blue flannel, his brown hair still a mess from sleep.

"Brendan!" she exclaimed, in a distressed whisper, "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I wasn't sneaking," he protested. "Where did he come from? He looks sick. Did you bring a sick owl into the common room?"

"Scotland."

"Scotland?"

"Yeah, he came with a letter that says it's from Hogwarts. Like, in Scotland Hogwarts. I don't know how he made it or what he's doing here, but I've got to get him back. His owner's probably worried sick."

Brendan inched closer to the bird, reaching out toward it carefully, "Maybe he got lost...like... _really_ lost."

"That's what I think."

the bird squawked and lunged at the boy, but calmed when Brendan gently petted his side. Coda didn't know if the owl actually liked the petting or if he was just too tired to keep fighting.

"I'm going to nurse him back to health. I need to contact his owner, but I don't know how."

"Maybe a bigger bird?"

"Maybe...But how are we gonna get _him_ back?"

"Good question."

She slapped his arm.

"What was that for?"

"you're supposed to help me!"

"Hey, I just woke up! I never agreed to any of this!"

Coda let out a long sigh, walking up to the bird and petting it gently. "Sorry...I just...I don't know what to do."

"Maybe we should tell a teacher"

The girl hesitated, but ultimately nodded. "I guess so." A part of her didn't want to. It was the same part of her that longed for adventure and wanted to sneak out of the girl's dorm at ungodly hours. Coda had a thirst for adrenaline and it was that thirst that made her wonder exactly how long she could keep this a secret. Still, she knew it would be best for the bird, and for the both of them, if they asked for a little help with all this.

* * *

-Thunderbird: One of the four houses of Ilvermorny, named after a legendary creature in certain North American Indigenous people's history and culture. It is considered a supernatural being of power and strength, and is generally depicted as a giant bird that can produce thunder. It is especially important, and frequently depicted, in the art, songs and oral histories of many Pacific Northwest coast cultures, but is also found in various forms among some peoples of the American Southwest, East coast of the United States, Great Lakes, and Great Plains (Wikipedia).

-Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: The oldest wizarding school in the United States of America

-Pukwudgie: A creature found in Delaware and Wampanoag folklore, sometimes said to be 4-to-5-foot-tall (Wikipedia). A short, grey-faced, large-eared creature distantly related to the European goblin. Fiercely independent, tricky and not over-fond of humankind (whether magical or mundane), it possesses its own powerful magic. Pukwudgies hunt with deadly, poisonous arrows and enjoy playing tricks on humans (J.K. Rowling).

-No-maj: American term for muggle, short for "no magic."


	2. Questions

A short, rather round woman stood before Coda and Brendan. She wore a knee-length yellow dress and green heels that added about an inch to her height and made her look like a sunflower. Her mousy brown hair fell over one shoulder and stopped at the underside. The room they stood in was decorated with motivational posters and spellsheets which almost made it look not too different than a no-maj classroom, but of course the walls were still made from the stone of the castle, and despite the room being in the middle of the building, three enchanted windows filled the room with warm sunlight from the outside.

"Mrs. Smith, can we talk to you for a second?" Brendan scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I've got a minute," She flipped her transfiguration textbook closed and looked over her desk at the students, "Shoot."

"Hypothetically speaking," Coda started, slowly, "If an owl got lost from delivering mail in the Scotland and ended up in America, how would one get the owl back to Scotland and contact the owner to tell them it's okay without actually going all the way across the ocean?"

The teacher raised an eyebrow with a smirk, "Sounds pretty specific for a hypothetical. I guess we could use floo powder to get the bird back to Scotland. As for contacting the owner, owls aren't the only birds that can carry letters. Actually, our school has a tern specifically for long distance mail like this. You didn't think a country as big as America only keeps owls to get our mail around, did you?"

"Oh, thank G-d," Coda sighed in relief, "And how might one...get access to this tern?"

"I'll help you. Let me see the owl. Is it okay?"

"He's in the Thunderbird girl's dorm," Coda nodded. "He came with a letter from a Thorn Blackwell at Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts? Well, that shouldn't be too hard to get him back at all, then."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. The schools communicate all the time. Our school was kind of based off of Hogwarts, you know."

"Yeah, we learned that in history class, first year."

"Alright, go get the owl and I'll see what I can do about getting him back to England."

"Wait," Coda stopped, "I mean, he's fine, he's getting better, but..."

Mrs. Smith frowned, "I'll see what I can do about getting him back to health too then, yeah?"

Coda nodded and headed to go get him. Brendan followed her out the door and all the way up to the common room, waiting there for her to come out of the girl's dorm with the bird. The girl's dorm was a large, round room lined with bunk beds that were fitted with cranberry and blue bed sheets, the school colours. Coda went over to the top bunk on the bed closest to the door and gently scooped the sleeping bird from the piled comforter that she hadn't bothered to lay out that morning. She almost tripped on a suitcase that was poking out from beneath the bottom bunk and the bird squawked and flapped his wings in her face, but she was able to catch herself and the bird before either of them hit the ground. She met Brendan in the common room and they made their way back to the classroom with the owl. By the time they got back, the teacher had cleared her desk of books and papers and told the two to set the bird on the desk so she could have a look at him.

"He seems fine to me, just maybe a little tired. Has he been eating?"

"I haven't tried feeding him," Coda admitted, "I just found him this morning."

"Oh, well, I'm no veterinarian, but he's probably starving after a flight like that. The first step to helping him is going to be getting him something to eat. In the meantime, I've got a new mission for you two. Why don't you start on that letter to his owner and I'll work on getting you that bird?"

The kids looked at each other and nodded. At least they would have something to do now, Coda thought. It was nice having a teacher who was so understanding of Coda's need for adventure and new experiences. Mrs. Smith was her favourite teacher, and Transfiguration was Brendan's favourite subject so when it came time to ask one of the teachers for some help, there was no question as to who it would be. The two students spent the rest of the day agreeing on exactly what they would be writing in the letter back to Scotland. Coda decided that she wanted to write more than just what was going on with Thorn's owl; she wanted to ask questions about Hogwarts, and what it was like. What exactly differed and what was the same as school in America. She wondered what parts of Ilvermorny came from the British wizarding school, though she could guess some things. For instance, most American no-maj schools didn't have houses. She wasn't even familiar with the term before coming to Ilvermorny.

 _Dear Thorn,_

 _We found your owl and are sending him back to Hogwarts as soon as he's better. He's not hurt or anything, just tired after a long flight. A_ _really_ _long flight. He made it all the way to the America! This letter is being sent by Coda and Brendan from Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and we hope to hear back from you. Neither of us have ever talked to a person all the way in Scotland. What is it like there? Is it colder? Do you have houses in all of your schools or just the wizarding kind? What are the houses like at Hogwarts? We're both in a house called Thunderbird, which in supposed to represent the soul and favor adventurers. We learned that our houses were actually created after the houses at Hogwarts, so now I'm curious. This letter might take a while to get to you, but we hope that it does in time to ease your worries about your bird._

 _We hope to hear from you again,  
_ _Coda Cabin and Brendan Forester_


End file.
